protonscr

Steam verification failure update loop

steamopen runtimeDistro Family: Slackware
ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#12161 · opened 2025-07-03 by tcanich · updated 2025-07-03 · 3 comments · github
Ttcanich 2025-07-03 github

Your system information

  • Steam client version (build number or date): 1751405894
  • Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Slackware64-current
  • Opted into Steam client beta?: [Yes/No] No
  • Have you checked for system updates?: [Yes/No] Yes
  • Steam Logs: steam-logs.tar.gz
  • GPU: Nvidia

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

Describe what you expected should happen and what did happen. Please link any large code pastes as a Github Gist

I last used Steam June 30. I started Steam today, July 2, and the client began to download an update. After installing the update, it reported a verification failure and restarted the download/install procedure. It continued doing this until I terminated the process. I expected the update to install then launch the client.

I removed ~/.local/share/Steam and ~/.steam. I started Steam again which downloaded the current version. This failed verification and repeated the same loop.

Starting Steam from the terminal I noticed the verification failure message:

[2025-07-02 22:15:51] Set status message: Verifying installation...
[2025-07-02 22:15:53] Show window
[2025-07-02 22:15:53] BVerifyInstalledFiles: steamrt64/steam-runtime-steamrt/steamrt3c_platform
_3c.0.20250519.130919/files/share/doc/libva-x11-2/copyright is -1 bytes, expected 5571
[2025-07-02 22:15:54] Verification complete

The referenced file did not exist:

~/.steam/steam/steamrt64/steam-runtime-steamrt/steamrt3c_platform_3c.0.2025051
9.130919/files/share/doc/libva-x11-2 [22:15:13] $ > ls -alrt
total 16K
drwxr-xr-x   2 tcanich tcanich  4096 Jul  2 19:31 ./
drwxr-xr-x 299 tcanich tcanich 12288 Jul  2 19:31 ../

I created a 5571 byte file with that name and the Steam client then correctly launched. I was able to login, download games.

~/.steam/steam/steamrt64/steam-runtime-steamrt/steamrt3c_platform_3c.0.2025051
9.130919/files/share/doc/libva-x11-2 [22:15:29] $ > dd if=/dev/zero of=copyright bs=1 count=5571
5571+0 records in
5571+0 records out
5571 bytes (5.6 kB, 5.4 KiB) copied, 0.013199 s, 422 kB/s
~/.steam/steam/steamrt64/steam-runtime-steamrt/steamrt3c_platform_3c.0.2025051
9.130919/files/share/doc/libva-x11-2 [22:15:46] $ > ls -l copyright
-rw-r--r-- 1 tcanich tcanich 5571 Jul  2 22:15 copyright

I suspect this file is part of the steamrt64 manifest but not included in the package.

Steps for reproducing this issue:

  1. Launch Steam
  2. Allow it to start the client update.
Ttcanich 2025-07-03 github

After restarting Steam the same file fails due to a mismatched checksum, however Steam will eventually start (doesn't go into the update loop):

[2025-07-02 23:45:20] BVerifyInstalledFiles: bad CRC on steamrt64/steam-runtime-steamrt/steamrt3c_platform_3c.0.20250519.130919/files/share/doc/libva-x11-2/copyright (b63a8dca expected, 9ef174 actual)
Jjn64 2025-07-03 github

I suspect this file is part of the steamrt64 manifest but not included in the package.

Unlikely, I (and presumably everyone else) have this file; the runtime wouldn't be modified after it was built on the date indicated (2025-05-19).

If I remove the file, Steam will report the same error ("-1 bytes") and download the file, without getting stuck.

To get around the checksum error temporarily, you can copy the file from ../libva2/copyright (they are identical, built from the same libva Debian source package).

Ttcanich 2025-07-03 github

To get around the checksum error temporarily, you can copy the file from ../libva2/copyright (they are identical, built from the same libva Debian source package).

Confirming copying ../libva2/copyright to this directory does correct the verification failure.

Nothing extracted yet.